[...] The Region of the Americas has benefitted from the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Collaborating Centers (CCs) since 1950 when the first CC was designated at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the United States of America. Since then, the CCs have supported the Organization in several important public health areas, such as nursing, communicable diseases, health promotion, mental health, emergency response, and others.

To the Editor: 

Objective

To obtain a comprehensive overview of organ donation, organ utilization, and discard in the entire donation process in Colombia. 

Methods 

A retrospective study of 1 451 possible donors, distributed in three regions of Colombia, evaluated in 2022. The general characteristics, diagnosis, and causes of contraindication for potential donors were described. 

Objective

The rational use of medicines offers a cost-saving strategy to maximize therapeutic outcomes for developing and developed countries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the rational use of medicines for selected noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) at three pharmacies at public hospitals in Jamaica using the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) prescribing indicators.

Objective

Construct a ranking of national immunization programs in Latin America in 2020 and compare it with the previous year.

More than 8 million older people in Latin America depend on long-term care (LTC), accounting for 12% of people aged ≥ 60 years and almost 27% of those aged ≥ 80. It is crucial to develop sustainable strategies for providing LTC in the area, including institutional care. This special report aims to characterize institutional LTC in four countries (Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico), using available information systems, and to identify the strategies adopted to support institutional care in these countries.

This article points out deficiencies in present-day definitions of public health surveillance, which include data collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination, but not public health action. Controlling a public health problem of concern requires a public health response that goes beyond information dissemination. It is undesirable to have public health divided into data generation processes (public health surveillance) and data use processes (public health response), managed by two separate groups (surveillance experts and policy-makers).

Objectives 

To identify the prevalence and determinants of continued breastfeeding in Haitian children aged 12–23 months. 

Objectives

To validate the implementation drivers scale among first-level mental health care professionals in Colombia. The scale is designed as a tool to guide the implementation of strategies that effectively reduce gaps in mental health care.
 

Objective

To provide a comprehensive overview of geographical patterns (2001–2010) and time trends (1993–2012) of cancer incidence in children aged 0–19 years in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and interpret the findings in the context of global patterns.